The Road to Berlin (127 page)

Soviet tanks now closed in for the kill. Chuikov’s divisions hammered their way across the
Landwehr
canal, attacking in countless small assault groups, swimming, rafting or storming those bridges still accessible; the guns blazed away at the
Tiergarten
, raising columns of smoke and clouds of brick dust as buildings came under sustained fire, with mortars bombarding German machine-gun positions which the guns could not reach. Scouts reported that it would be possible to penetrate the
Tiergarten
by using the underground railway tunnels but only with small groups. Chuikov urgently needed to get possession of the bridge on the Potsdamerstrasse in order to get at least a few tanks through to the
Tiergarten
, an operation he was supervising personally. Beaten back several times, Soviet infantry rigged up one tank with sandbags soaked in diesel fuel; the tank moved forward to the bridge, spectacularly caught fire but continued to move and fire. Taking advantage of the confusion among the
SS
gunners, other tanks at once rushed the bridge and broke through to the courtyard of the corner building, from which the entire block was cleared. The storming of the
Tiergarten
then started from the southern edge; at the western tip of the zoo the two giant Flak towers reared up high in the air.

On the northern edge of the
Tiergarten
Old Moabit fell to General S.N. Perevertkin’s 79th Rifle Corps from 3rd Shock Army—the formation leading the attack on that prime Soviet objective, the
Reichstag
. Breaking down German resistance in the narrow reach of land between the Spree and the
Verbindungskanal
,
Shatilov’s 150th Rifle Division (79th Corps) struck from the east and on the morning of 28 April had taken the factory district to the south of the
Kleiner Tiergarten
. Ahead lay the Moabit Prison, a grim building with a grim reputation, forbidding in appearance with high brick walls and massive iron gates. Colonel Zinchenko, commander of the 756th Rifle Regiment (150th Division), carried through the assault on the prison, though his men needed little urging for rumour had it that Goebbels himself was in command here and could well be among the prisoners. Soviet troops frantically scanned the German prisoners but Goebbels failed to materialize—the popular assumption being that he had escaped. Jailer and captive now exchanged places as 7,000 prisoners, including Allied prisoners of war, were freed by Zinchenko’s men, from whom many begged just for a rifle and the chance of revenge.

Zeroing in on the
Reichstag
, Chuikov’s 8th Guards advanced on the
Tiergarten
from the south, Berzarin’s 5th Shock Army with 11th Tank Corps pressed on from the east, and Kuznetsov’s 3rd Shock Army bore down from the north-west, narrowing the range to this supreme target to not much more than a thousand yards or so. The
Reichstag
building had a lure all its own, for it would be not only a symbol of Soviet victory but also a signal to end the war, to finish the fighting. Not to be outdone in this contest for the real prize, Koniev ordered Rybalko with 3rd Guards Army to advance towards the
Landwehr
canal and in co-operation with General Shvarev’s 20th Rifle Corps (from 28th Army) to clear the whole of the south-eastern districts of Berlin. By the evening of 28 April Koniev wanted Rybalko on the western edge of the
Tiergarten
with the main body of 7th Guards Tank Corps and 20th Rifle Division. But as the day progressed new danger loomed when it became apparent that with Chuikov driving on the
Landwehr
canal there was every possibility of Rybalko’s tanks colliding with Chuikov’s riflemen as the attack sectors continued to narrow. Koniev ordered Rybalko—much to the latter’s fury and disgust—to turn back westwards once he had reached the line of the
Landwehr
canal, a deployment which meant pulling 3rd Guards tanks well away from the coveted prizes in the central district of Berlin. The front boundary between 1st Ukrainian and 1st Belorussian continued to run as before through Mariendorf, but it was now adjusted to slant north-westwards from the Tempelhof station, Viktoria-Luise-Platz, on to the Savigny station and thence along the railway line to the Charlottenburg, Westkrauz and Ruhleben stations. In spite of his passionate and insubordinate protests, Rybalko received categorical orders to shift the axis of his attack from the Schöneberg district in the direction of the Savigny station, that is, to the north-west and well away from the
Tiergarten
. Koniev’s 1st Ukrainian Front, whose tank armies had done so much to rip the German defences apart, was now shut out from the centre of Berlin, a bitter pill which Koniev and Rybalko had to swallow.

On the south-western limits of the city 10th Guards Tank Corps from Lelyushenko’s tank army and the 350th Rifle Division (from 13th Army) continued to fight for Wannsee island, forcing their way into the southern reaches of the
island which housed a considerable German force. Potsdam had fallen on 27 April and Lelyushenko then directed 6th Mechanized Corps towards Brandenburg further to the west, but 6th Mechanized suddenly crashed into the forward elements of Wenck’s Twelfth Army trying to break through to Berlin. Wenck pressed more attacks on the Beelitz–Treuenbrietzen line and here Yermakov’s 5th Mechanized Corps found itself in an increasingly difficult position. Lelyushenko’s orders were quite specific: 4th Guards Tank Army must close the German escape route to the south-west of Berlin, block any attempt by Wenck to break into Berlin with Twelfth Army and also eliminate the remnants of Busse’s Ninth Army in the Luckenwalde area. But it was Yermakov’s corps which was taking a hammering and forced at this stage to fight on a reversed front, with the main body deployed to the west in order to hold off Wenck but part of the corps facing east to counter Ninth Army. By way of reinforcement Lelyushenko rushed 63rd Guards Tank Brigade to Luckenwalde, followed by the 72nd Guards Heavy Tank Regiment, an independent
SP
-gun regiment and, finally, 68th Guards Tank Brigade.

This bitter and bloody fighting, with German battle groups trying to break the Soviet ring, inflicted heavy losses on both sides. Inside Berlin on 28 April Rybalko’s 3rd Guards pushed its attack into Charlottenburg, leaving only one tank brigade—the 57th—on its left flank and holding the centre. Three German battle groups, with tanks and
SP
guns, seized this chance to fight their way to the Havel—only to encounter units of Perkhorovich’s 47th Army and find themselves enmeshed in another fire trap. As Lelyushenko launched his assault attack on Wannsee island late on the evening of 28 April—a plan Koniev did not much care for, since the tanks could be at a severe disadvantage—in the heart of Berlin General Perevertkin with 79th Rifle Corps prepared its attack on the
Reichstag
. Perevertkin’s battle orders specified that the commander of that unit or section which first raised the ‘Victory Banner’ over the
Reichstag
would be made a Hero of the Soviet Union. With his corps reinforced with artillery, tanks and
SP
guns, Perevertkin ordered the 171st Rifle Division to seize the Moltke bridge over the Spree and on the morning of 29 April clear the Germans from the corner building on the Kronprinzenufer, then to co-operate with 150th Division in taking the Ministry of Internal Affairs—‘Himmler’s house’—and take up positions for the storming of the
Reichstag
itself. Each battalion would organize two assault groups supported by
SP
guns; heavy-calibre artillery received orders to fire over open sights and the
Katyusha
crews to bombard the whole area of the
Reichstag
.

A thunderous explosion signalled a German attempt to blow the Moltke bridge, but the bridge remained hanging by the centre section. A Soviet attempt to rush the bridge failed, first foiled by the barricades and finally beaten back by fire from German pill-boxes on the southern bank. Shortly after midnight on 29 April Captain Neustroyev’s 1st Battalion (756th Rifle Regiment) and the 1st Battalion from 380th Rifle Regiment smashed through the barricades and across
the bridge, but a crossing in force had to wait until the buildings on the corner were cleared. General Shatilov commanding 150th Rifle Division assaulting the Spree encountered two German generals taken prisoner in the recent burst of fighting: with ‘detestable civility’ both senior officers dropped to their knees with the remark, ‘The German generals bow their knee before the Soviet general…’ —and then asked if they might smoke. The Soviet divisional commander showed them from his observation post the panorama of flaming ruins, with the dark outlines of large buildings showing up through the columns of smoke—and there it was, the
Reichstag
with its battered outer shell and the cupola atop, well suited as a tactical strong-point. But before tackling the
Reichstag
the Spree had to be forced in strength.

A mere quarter of a mile away in the
Führerbunker
the first of several eerie scenes was enacted. Not much after Neustroyev’s battalion had clawed its way across the Spree, in the early hours of 29 April Hitler turned to dictating his ‘political testament’, with the heavy thud of Soviet shells as background: casting out Göring and Himmler from the Party, the
Führer
went on to dismiss Speer and appoint Dönitz his successor, entrusting command of the German Army to Field-Marshal Schörner. Having acquitted himself before history, the Nazi Party and the German people, Hitler then arranged to be married, now that his ‘mortal span’ had all but ended and his public duties were about to be laid down. The ceremony with Eva Braun as bride was a model of middle-class decorum. Ensconced in the bunker along with Hitler was Goebbels (together with his wife and children) and it was to Goebbels that Hitler turned frequently during the wedding breakfast in order to fill out the details of the cabinet he would bequeath to Dönitz; Bormann enjoyed more of Hitler’s confidences and proceeded to transmit stern messages to Dönitz in Flensburg. Orders to those still faithful or professing faith, threats against those engaged in treason or on the verge of it, and ever more frantic requests for information from mangled armies went out over the wavering wireless network (silenced suddenly when a barrage balloon carrying the antenna was shot down), while enemy broadcasts brought news of fresh calamities. Outside the fighting raged for ‘Himmler’s house’.

At 7 am on the morning of 29 April Soviet guns fired off a ten-minute barrage at ‘Himmler’s house’: infantrymen dragged mortars to the second floor of the building cornering Alt-Moabit Strasse and Kronprinzenufer and fired point-blank at their targets. Towards noon two Soviet regiments—the 756th and the 380th—broke into the courtyard of the Ministry and even took a few rooms on the first floor. This was mad, protracted fighting at very close range, enveloped in its own murk, dust and smoke, lit with gun flashes and filled with a steady roaring noise. Elsewhere throughout the city Soviet assault squads cleared their allotted sectors or made steady advances, breaking into the Zoo and firing up at the Flak towers from the Hippopotamus House. To the east, Berzarin’s 5th Shock Army was operating with its right flank in the southern sector of Prenzlauerberg and fighting a fierce battle for the Anhalt station with left-flank
units, while over to the west Rybalko’s reconnaissance troops reported preparations by a German battle group to break out from the Ruhleben area in an attempt to push south, whereupon the main body of 7th Guards Tank Corps moved into a blocking position. On Wannsee island Lelyushenko’s 10th Guards Tank Corps fought all day for control of the south-western reaches but failed to bottle up a sizeable German force. As these short stabbing battles continued, more Soviet troops and support units moved into the blocks of the burned and blackened city, settling into cellars, camping in gardens, rummaging through rooms, pillaging in bizarre style, hunting down women, mixing acts of ferocity with sudden generosity and compassion—or wild revels—in bewildering, brutal, fearsome, unexpected behaviour. To the women they raped Soviet soldiers would bring presents of bread, fish, alcohol. Drunken squad rapes might end in murder and Soviet officers with a tighter grip on their soldiers sometimes exacted rough justice with their side-arms—shooting the culprit—while in places affronted, agonized victims pleaded for the lives of soldiers standing at the point of a gun. In the horrible crawl out of and through the ruins in search of the bare necessities of life, Red Army soldiers lent their own aid by distributing what food they themselves had or by ‘requisitioning’ boarded-up shops.

The Red Army soldier straddling Berlin, gun in hand and flanked by massive, mighty battle tanks as well as the nimble T-34s, with Soviet fighters flicking and rolling over the city in the company of the black scarecrow squadrons of ground-attack planes, felt himself to be not only a victor but also a victim—victim of a series of horrible, bestial outrages inflicted on himself, his family and his country. Soviet front-line propaganda certainly stirred the blood and rammed home in short, thudding phrases what the enemy was—a beast: the average Soviet soldier, however, needed no great instruction on this theme. Riflemen in Captain Neustroyev’s battalion attacking the
Reichstag
, crouching in corners to storm ‘Himmler’s house’ and stalking
SS
machine-gunners, knew that here in front of their eyes was ‘the lair of the Fascist beast’. Though conscious of the historical mission of the Red Army to root out Fascism, confident that they alone had broken the back of the
Wehrmacht
, many commanders were revolted at having to shoot down ranks of schoolboys in
Hitlerjugend
garb carrying
Panzerfausts
, the
faustniki;
many of the same commanders, when it came to marshalling and corralling prisoners, let the red-eyed youths go from the columns with little more than a cuff round the ear, if that. Sentimentality and simple-mindedness there was, often turned to murderous anger and irrational rage by alcohol, stores of which were locked up by German military order and thus discovered intact in magical largesse by oncoming Russian troops. The fighting drained both sides, though Russian lustiness won through.